Don's Mellotron Page

J. Donald Tillman
11 March 2001, updated September 2006

"My Favorite Sounds Are Eight Seconds Long"

The Mellotron is an electronic musical instrument invented around 1960 to
provide the sounds of violins, cellos, flutes, choirs, horns, pretty much
anything, from a keyboard. Given the technology of the day, the
reasonable way to do this was with strips of magnetic tape. So the
Mellotron uses a strip of magnetic tape, a pinch roller, tape head,
pressure pad, and a rewind mechanism for each note on the keyboard.

To our modern day technological sensibilities this cumbersome mechanical
contraption seems kludgy as can be, especially you're watching the tape
rewind operation, but the fact is that no modern technology keyboard can
come close to the quality of presence so characteristic of the
Mellotron sound. Why is this? Because the tape playback
mechanism is the musical instrument. It matters less what is
recorded on the tape.

You can hear the Mellotron on almost every song on the main seven
Moody Blues albums, on
The Beatles' Strawberry Fields, and on many albums by
Genesis,
King Crimson,
the Strawbs and
Yes.
The instrument was, and still is, a centerpiece of the progressive rock
movement.

For the answers to almost all Mellotron maintenance questions check out
Dave Kean's
Mellotron Archives
site for instructional video tapes and service manuals. Very highly
recommended.

The Mellotron Book
by Frank Samagaio, published by ArtistPro Publishing.
This includes a number of contribution from folks on the
Mellotronists Yahoo group.

Vintage Synthesizers
by Mark Vail, published by Backbeat Books A must-have for
synth fans, this book includes a chapter about the
Mellotron. It's a reprint of Mark Vail's "Vintage
Synths" column in the May 1991 issue of
Keyboard Magazine
(with, surprise, Patrick Moraz on the cover) but with a couple pages of
additional material.

Mike Pinder
Mike Pinder has a Mellotron history section on his web page.

Mellotronists Email List

Mellotronists is an email distribution list I maintain for
Mellotron owners, fans, players and fetishists. Find out about
'Trons for sale, new developments, historical trivia, maintenance tips,
and all sorts of random things. It's over here, on Yahoo Groups:

Current Projects

There are several Mellotron improvement projects I've been working on.
(Actually, I've been working on them for far too long. My
life is kind'a nuts.)

Replacing the Mellotron power supply with a modern switching power
supply. This could potentially lighten a Mellotron by about 50
lbs, provide better motor stability and allow operation from 115 or 220
volt lines automatically. Preliminary experiments look
promising.

Replace the CMC-10 servo board with a servo controller of my own
design. The original CMC-10 servo board is a pretty awful design
and barely works, the later SMS servo board is good, but I think I can
do even better. Preliminary experiments look good.